Amidst the coal slump that has battered the shares of producers like Walter Energy (WLT), Arch Coal (ACI) and Alpha natural Resources (ANR), Peabody Energy (BTU) has held up slightly better thanks to its “relatively more balanced financials.” That didn’t stop Imperial Capital’s Matthew Farwell from taking a sour view of Peabody Energy in a note today:
Reuters We are assigning an Underperform Rating to the common stock and establishing a one-year price target of $5.00. We are assigning SELL ratings to select senior notes…While Peabody has a stellar reputation and a strong management team, in our view, its shares and senior notes likely will remain under pressure from rising leverage and instability in global coal markets. The shares currently are valued at about 12.4x EV/EBITDA, and could rise to 14.0x if coking coal were to settle at $110/t in the short-term, near where current spot prices are indicated. Our Underperform rating factors in a view that coking coal could settle in the $140-150/t range long-term and the shares should trade at 6.0x-7.0x normalized EBITDA. Our SELL rating on the senior notes is a function of high 7.4x net leverage that could rise to 8.4x with a similar short-term drop in coking coal, also causing free cash flow to turn negative, which would necessitate using revolver capacity or secured debt to cover pending maturities. We are most negative on longer-dated notes the market will realize would be layered with secured debt over time. Like more distressed coal producers (Walter Energy, Alpha Natural Resources, Arch Coal), Peabody's troubles stem from the debt-financed acquisition of coking coal assets in the 2011 time period when it issued $4bn of debt to purchase Macarthur Coal.
Shares of Peabody Energy have dropped 5.9% to $10.16 at 9:48 a.m. today, while Arch Coal has fallen 4.8% to $1.60, Alpha Natural Resources has declined 4.7% to $1.74 and Walter Energy is off 1.9% at $1.58.
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